Weather, greetings, curses and exclamations — the utterances with no predicate
A minor sentence is a complete utterance that lacks the bipartite subject-predicate structure of a full sentence. Forman divides them into five types: weather, greetings, simple questions, curses, and other exclamations.
They are generally single words or short phrases — and a great deal of ordinary conversation is made of them.
Muduran ya. — It's raining.
Duduldul ya. — It's thundering.
Lilintik ya. — It's lightning.
Each is a verb plus ya — and the ya refers to nothing. There is no "it." Forman treats these as minor sentences precisely because there is no subject for the predicate to be about.
All three show reduplication marking the progressive: du-duran, du-duldul, li-lintik. Weather, in Kapampangan, is something continuously happening.
Mayap a yabak. — Good morning.
Mayap a gatpanapun pu. — Good afternoon, sir.
Mayap a bengi pu. — Good evening, sir/ma'am.
Kumusta abe? — How are you, friend?
Dios pu — literally "God, sir" — is, in Forman's gloss, "a greeting used to announce one's presence at the door or gate of someone's home."
There is no English equivalent. You do not knock and say "hello"; you announce yourself with a word that invokes God and defers to the householder in three syllables.
It is also a good example of why a grammar is worth reading even for vocabulary: no phrasebook would think to list it, and no learner would work it out.
Note abe — "friend, companion" — in that last greeting. It is the root behind abayan, "accompany," from lesson 4.
Bakit? — Why?
Ninu? — Who?
Magkanu? — How much?
Kapilan man? — Then when?
There is bakit again — standing alone as a complete Kapampangan utterance in Forman's own list. The beginner course originally claimed bakit marked you as speaking Tagalog; this is part of why that claim was corrected.
And Kapilan man? shows a lexical particle from lesson 14 doing work in a one-word question: man adds "then, even."
Aray! — Ouch!
Aru! — Wow! / Hey!
Naku! — Mother of mine! (dismay, surprise)
Susmariyosep! — Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Susmariyosep is three names compressed into one exclamation — the kind of thing that only happens to a phrase said very often over a very long time.
Forman also records curses, including Dipa ning alti — "may lightning strike you." Strong language exists in every language and belongs in a grammar; you do not need to use it, but you should recognise it.
Finally, the existentials and affirmations standing alone:
| Atin. | There is. |
| Ala. | There's none. |
| Ali. | It's not. |
| Wa. | Yes. |
| Opu. | Yes, sir. |
Note Atin — the HAVE form — standing alone for "there is." And each of these takes the lexical particles from lesson 14 freely: Ala pa, Ali pa mu, Wa pin, Wa rugu.
You can have a firm grip on the focus system and still sound like a textbook if every utterance is a full sentence.
Real conversation is mostly short: a greeting, a one-word question, an exclamation, a particle-laden "yes." These cost almost nothing to learn and do more for how you come across than another affix.
Is Dios pu still used? Forman recorded it in 1969. Practices around doorways change; ask locally rather than assuming either way.
Why does weather take ya if there is no subject? Because the pronoun is obligatory in Kapampangan even when there is nothing for it to refer to — the rule from beginner lesson 4, taken to its logical end.
Should I learn the curses? Recognise them. You will hear them.
Minor sentences are the connective tissue of ordinary talk. A learner who can produce a well-placed Aru!, Wa pin or Dios pu sounds like someone who has spent time with speakers, which is exactly the impression you want.
Next: Deictics Revisited — the full chart, with cases, plurals and the indefinite substitutes.